Weathersbee: Deep poverty and other problems plague Memphis. It should expect to be called out on it

Many Memphis renters are "cost-burdened'' and unable to save for a down payment to buy a home.
Tom Bailey/The Commercial Appeal

Buy Photo

CNN political pundit Angela Rye talks to the crowd at the Orpheum during the I Am A Man Commemoration rally Saturday morning sponsored by the city of Memphis to kick off a series of MLK50 events in the city. (Photo: Jim Weber/The Commercial Appeal)Buy Photo

Mayor Jim Strickland is in a tough spot. But he needs to buckle up for a bumpy ride – because more of what happened this past Saturday is bound to come his way.

At an event honoring the heroism of the Memphis sanitation strikers 50 years ago, the speaker, political pundit and CNN contributor Angela Rye, turned what was supposed to be a lens on Memphis’ past into a laser on its present.

She blasted the city’s leadership on the problems that plague it, such as its high child poverty rate, its policing and requiring an escort for some activists to enter City Hall.

CLOSE

Political strategist and commentator Angela Rye speaks at the Clayborn Temple following her speech at the city's I AM a Man event.
Wochit

Strickland fired back, saying that some of Rye’s claims were untrue, and viewed her speech as an attack on Memphis.

But as mayor of the city where Martin Luther King Jr. was killed in 1968 fighting for African-American sanitation workers to be paid a decent wage and to not have to worry about being killed by shoddy equipment, Strickland should expect that anyone who comes here to honor King will, more than likely, scrutinize the city’s progress has come since that time.

So, he should look at Rye’s words as a challenge, not an attack.

And one area where the city can meet that challenge, and do a better job of honoring the sanitation workers’ courage, is to be on the forefront of one of the issues that Rye mentioned – of fighting to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour.

In the 50 years that have passed since King marched here, Memphis is the nation’s poorest city. Its poverty rate is 26.9 percent – and that rate is growing as the poverty rate for other cities of similar size are decreasing.

NEWSLETTERS

Get the Breaking News newsletter delivered to your inbox

We're sorry, but something went wrong

Stay on top of the news. The latest breaking news stories delivered to your inbox as they happen.

One of the main factors driving that poverty, and the crime and instability that it spawns, is that Shelby County is one of the top five counties in the nation with the highest concentrations of people in temporary jobs.

These are jobs that pay only $7.25 an hour, offer no benefits, and no permanency.

And, said Maurice Spivey, chapter chairperson of ASCFME Local 1733, which represents the city’s sanitation workers, said that what galls him is that now, temporary jobs in the private sector are being touted as a route for workers to earn the right to a permanent job.

“That’s nothing but modern day sharecropping,” Spivey said. “You have no rights, you have no benefits…you make millions for a company and only wind up earning $13,000 to $16,000 for yourself…

“You’re in a warehouse…the only difference is that you have a forklift and not a mule.”

Michael Thompson, a political science professor at William Paterson University and author of the book, “The Politics of Inequality,” agrees with Spivey’s sharecropper analogy.

“It’s an agrarian metaphor for a post-industrial world,” Thompson said. “Productivity is up…labor is producing more for the economy, and profits are up, but they’re being paid less and less.”

For its part, the city claims that only 5 percent of its 6,659 full time employees make less than $15 an hour – and Strickland has said he supports a higher minimum wage. Yet Spivey worries that the city’s hiring of temporary workers could set the tone for undermining progress on wages, as has happened in the private sector.

“Think about what happened 50 years ago,” he said. “The sanitation workers had no rights, they had no benefits, they had nothing…”

Now obviously, Memphis’ sanitation workers are better off than they were in 1968 – thanks to the courage of 1,300 men who decided that having a life and dignity meant more than having a job and suffering indignities.

But honoring them and King doesn’t simply mean commemorating their courage. It also means living up to what their sacrifice represented in terms of improving their lives and the lives of others in the city.

Right now, Memphis and Shelby County aren’t living up to that.

Hopefully, as people like Rye and others from around the nation and the world descend on Memphis, Strickland won’t continue to be taken aback at criticism – especially when the substance of it is correct and every legitimate indicator shows this city and county is struggling in virtually every area of well-being.

He should learn how to absorb such scrutiny now – because as Memphis continues to be in the national spotlight, chances are there will be more of where that came from.